Cheney’s Betrayal Made an IIPA Charge for Libby Possible
Yesterday, I showed the many ways that Dick Cheney hung his purportedly valued aide, Scooter Libby, out to dry in his interview with Patrick Fitzgerald.
But I didn’t do a very good job of explaining the consequences of that action from Cheney. Luckily, perris did that for me.
As a reminder, I’ve shown over the years that a great deal of circumstantial evidence suggests that Dick Cheney ordered Scooter Libby to leak a number of things to Judy Miller on July 8, 2003: The NIE (as Libby testified), but also the report from Joe Wilson’s trip and Valerie Wilson’s identity. From public reporting, it always looked like Cheney had constructed a firewall to defend against an IIPA violation. If Fitzgerald ever proved that Libby leaked Valerie Wilson’s identity to Judy Miller knowing she was covert, then Cheney could claim that he had insta-declassified her identity, thereby giving that leak a legal defense, however dubious. Cheney even went so far to imply to Tim Russert that he hypothetically could have declassified Valerie Wilson’s identity.
Q There was a story in the National Journal that Cheney authorized Libby to leak confidential information. Can you confirm or deny that?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I have the authority as Vice President under an executive issued by the President to classify and declassify information. And everything I’ve done is consistent with those authorities.
Q Could you declassify Valerie Plame’s status as an operative?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I’ve said all I’m going to say on the subject, Tim.
But Cheney’s denials of all knowledge of the Plame leak during his Fitzgerald interview would have made that defense impossible.
[Cheney] has no personal knowledge of anyone having provided [Mrs. Wilson’s employment] to Robert Novak, or any other reporter.
[snip]
he does not recall having a conversation with the President about the Wilsons. [note, Cheney goes on to contradict this claim]
[snip]
He does not recall discussing Valerie Wilson with Libby prior to her name appearing in Novak’s column on 7/14/03.
[snip]
His handwritten notes on the 7/6/03 editorial about Wilson’s trip and the involvement of Wilson’s wife in the CIAs selection of Wilson was triggered by his recollection of the prior telephone conversation he had with George Tenet, wherein Tenet identified Wilson’s wife as an employee of the agency. The Vice President also indicated that he never discussed the substance of his call with Tenet with anyone prior to the publication of Valerie Wilsons identity in Novak’s 7/14/03 newspaper column. [Note, earlier he had said he may have told Libby]
[snip]
The Vice President advised that it is possible he and Scooter Libby discussed former Ambassador Wilson’s credentials for undertaking the mission for the CIA, but he has no specific recollection of such a discussion. Additionally, he does not recall any discussion with Libby of perceived nepotism associated with Wilson’s selection for the CIA assignment. [elsewhere he admits he discussed Wilson’s op-ed, which he had annotated, with someone]
[snip]
The Vice President believed it possible that he and Libby discussed the Wilson trip as some kind of a junket or boondoggle, words which are to him synonymous in their meaning. However, he has no solid recollection of any such discussion.
The Vice President advised that there was no discussion of “pushing back” on Wilson’s credibility by raising the nepotism issue, and there was no discussion of using Valerie Wilson’s employment with the CIA in countering Joe Wilson’s criticisms and claims about Iraqi efforts to procure yellowcake uranium from Niger.
[snip]
The Vice President does not recall any member of his staff, including Scooter Libby, meeting with New York Times reporter Judith Miller during the week of 7/7/03, just after publication of Joe Wilson’s editorial in the New York Times. [Note, Libby has clear notes recording a discussion between him and Cheney about this]
[snip]
The Vice President advised that no one ever told him of a desire to share key judgments of the NIE with a news reporter prior to the NIEs declassification on 7/18/03.
[snip]
The Vice President cannot specifically recall having a conversation with Scooter Libby during which Libby advised the Vice President that he wanted to share with the key judgments of the NIE with Judith Miller. Although if it did occur, he would have advised Libby only to use something if it was declassified. He believed Libby would have told him about any attempts to put something out to the media prior to its declassification and the Vice President cannot recall such a discussion. [Note this paragraph contradicts Cheney’s statements elsewhere in several key ways, and the question was not about key judgments but about the uranium portion]
When asked if he ever had a conversation with Scooter Libby wherein Libby informed the Vice President that certain material within the NIE needed to be declassified before it could be shared externally, Vice President Cheney advised he does not recall. [This is where Cheney refuses to answer questions about whether he said the President, and then he started complaining that he was short of time]
While Fitzgerald never asked Cheney whether Libby had asked him about declassified Plame’s identity–as distinct from the NIE–Cheney asserted that:
- He has no personal knowledge of anyone providing Plame’s identity to any reporter.
- He does not recall discussing Plame with Libby prior to Novak’s column
- He does not recall Libby meeting with Judy Miller
- He has not recall any conversations about declassifying the NIE before leaking it to a journalist
Again, this is not a specific denial of remembering a conversation about declassifying Plame’s identity, but it would be virtually impossible for Cheney, after having made these assertions, to later claim he remembered insta-declassifying Plame’s identity in anticipation of leaking it to Judy Miller (on Cheney’s order, it must be said). Sure, Libby could have and would have had some evidence that Cheney had done just that. And Cheney could have said, “Eureka! I remember now, insta-declassifying that counterproliferation officer’s identity!” But given the way Cheney claimed to have no memory of anything related to declassifying even the NIE, much less Plame’s identity, such approaches would have been pretty weak defenses for Libby.
Of course, speaking as he was in May 2004, when everyone assumed there would be no way Judy Miller would testify about her conversation with Libby, Cheney probably thought no one would ever wonder whether Libby was authorized to leak Plame’s identity to Miller.
But after 2005, when Judy testified, it was too late for Cheney to change his testimony. Libby was already fucked. Fucked over by the guy he went to such lengths to protect.
Cheney was publicly implying that he would have had the authority to declassify Plame’s identity. Perhaps this was just an attempt to make people ignore inquiries like mine. But it’s just as likely that when Cheney realized that Libby had testified he had ordered Libby to leak stuff to Judy Miller (this happened the same weekend Cheney shot an old man in the face), he wanted to give Libby the impression that his own testimony protected Libby from an IIPA violation.
But it didn’t. Judy’s unreliable testimony saved Libby. But without that, Cheney’s own testimony would have been the evidence Fitzgerald would have needed to charge Libby with deliberately outing a CIA spy.
The other day I was wondering what prompted Libby to write his letter to Judy. Did DOJ share something with Libby’s lawyers that made them think it was better to get her on the record? (Albeit, in a somewhat coached manner.)
Remember the Aspens reference.
THAT was the reference that Judy wouldn’t answer for me–she explained the reference away to having met Libby in Jackson Hole, and I asked whether she had met Cheney too. No answer.
Maybe–likely–that was Libby’s signal to her that he and Cheney had worked out a new fall-back plan, which is why Cheney was saying he could have declassified Plame’s ID.
Whoops. Misspelling in the title.
Thanks Loo Hoo.
Guilt or drunkenness? Or drunkenness over guilt? Or just plain karma.
Interesting. Wish Fitz could have used the IIPA angle as the nucleus of a ‘sticky ball’ to successfully roll up the remaining Bush crew.
Maybe Attorney Worthington, the victim of Cheney’s splatter on the Armstrong ranch, had advised Cheney to turn himself in. Ms. Armstrong was quick to point out to the newspaper reporters at the time, however, that Worthington was there because of her invitation and that she didn’t know whether Worthington and Cheney knew each other beforehand.
Whittington, Harry. It should be noted that although he had been a life long Republican active in politics, Whittington has now dissociated himself completely from Republican politics and is an active voice against the death penalty in Texas.
oops. Thanks for the name correction.
Good to know that Whittington is a thinking man.
Hmmmmm. Has Harry spoken of having an epiphany? Sure would like to know what that might have been. A face, neck and upper chest full of buckshot might have something to do with it.
No clue. May just be old and tired. Saw that here. Here is a decent writeup on him. Sounds like a decent chap.
Many thanks. I tried googling and didn’t come up with anything, which is why I troubled you with it. I do appreciate the links.
Supposedly, he’s also an Episcopalian. That helps.
To think an “un indicted war criminal” (Ron Reagan’s description of Cheney” has not only gotten away with outing a CIA undercover agent and endangering her life , her families lives, and undermining US national security. Cheney is still out there actively undermining a legitimately elected President and foreign policy.
Speaking of Aspens, I heard on NPR this past week that the Aspens are going through a die off. This LA Times article states it is due to global warming which has allowed parasitic insects to thrive. Tough times in the west.
Another thing about aspens from this 2005 Slate article
Aspen clones develop through a process of asexual reproduction called “root suckering.” Unlike many other trees, new aspens rarely come from seeds; they almost always grow as extensions from an existing root system.* Suckers can pop out of the ground in great numbers—tens of thousands per acre—and can appear dozens of feet away from the nearest stem. Each new sucker gets the benefit of a pre-existing root system that delivers nutrients from the soil.
Pre-existing root system–aka wingnut welfare?
lol, emptywheel. I just saw the pink clothespins in the Libby photo above.
When I was reading Cheney’s stuff I remembered Libby’s crew “threatening” to call Cheney as a witness and the almost bemused response from the prosecutors.
Was Cheney’s info about how he may have shared and cared with Matalin anything new?
Is there a character in history as flawed as Dick Cheney? None comes to mind. (Not surprising.) I suppose anyone as vile a pestilence upon mankind would likely have been expunged from memory long ago.
What’s the cautionary tale? Corruption of power? Pettiness of patriarchy? Delusions from the dark side? Boy oh boy, you’d have to go back to the roots of civilization to find such a self-important villain who accomplished so little (constructively) with so much available energy. And when the chips are down… he stands up, upheaves the table and starts shooting the other gamblers. That’s it — he’s a two-bit bad guy from an olde Western.
Right and wrong is a brand. A brand sticks…
Gotta say though, I enjoyed watching the Cheney Gang get slapped around like Wild Card Hendricks… Thanks to FDL’ers like… present company!!
Somewhere here in the last year or so I called Cheney “The Worst American In History”. I think I will stay with that.
So, you’re letting Benedict Arnold off the hook?
Not that I have any love for Cheeeney, who certainly has to rank with the worst.
Bob in AZ
Well, yeah. when you consider the hell wreaked, I think while Arnold was a first rate traitor, the path of wreakage Cheney has left is far more damaging. The damage to the Constitution occasioned by his policies and sociopathic fixation and determination to enact and ingrain them will plague this country for a very very long time, if not forever. It also so corrupted, polluted and fractured the political process that government is effectively disfunctional. Now Cheney did not do all of this by himself of course, but a whole lot of it could not have maintained without his hand. Then tie in the disdain he shows for the Obama Administration and his active and affirmative efforts to undercut it at ever turn. Then tie in Iraq, and the hundreds of thousands of lives extinguished and destroyed. Then tie in the belligerent state of the middle east and the rest of the world, and the economic disadvantage his aggressive war policies have placed us in. Add it all up and I don’t think Arnold even comes close.
That’s why I want Darth far enough down in hell that Benedict can excrete upon him.
I agree on the catalog of evils Cheney has wrought. If there really is justice in this world, Cheney will be convicted of war crimes, miscellaneous felonies, and maybe even treason against the Constitution.
Bob in AZ
Category:American people convicted of war crimes
The only name I recognized was William Calley of My Lai. The only one executed was a Confederate sodlier after the Civil War.
Their crimes pale in comparison to Cheney’s alleged transgressions.
But that’s history now, right?
If this is indeed a complete list, the thing that most stands out is that of the 11 convicted, 10 have been from the second Iraq war.
Rosebud.
Most famous last word.
Point being that there simply has to be a damaged personal psychology at the root of it. No predominantly rational dynamic could ever have produced the phenomenon of Dick.
Oh, you mean there’s no point in looking for one? Darn, I’d just gotten started on reading up on history…
Well then there’s this guy named Marduk… Sounds like Murdoch…
Hey, is history set on replay?
You need to read more history.
Bob in AZ
It certainly does put that in a whole new light, doesn’t it? Still, I think the prosecutors were rolling their eyes over it more because there was NOTHING Cheney could have said that would make Scooter look innocent. If Cheney had taken the stand and said, “I ordered the whole thing,” Libby STILL would have been fucked, since that’s not what he told the FBI or the grand jury. The charges against Libby were VERY carefully crafted–not only did they withstand a graymail challenge, but they were also made in such a way that there was absolutely nothing that Cheney (or even Bush) could have said that would have helped Scooter out.
Yeah, but when the President has the commutation card, what are you gonna do?
Nobody in their right mind ever thought for one second that Cheney would testify unless Fitzgerald subpoenaed him as a hostile witness. There was not one chance in hell that he was coming as a witness in Libby’s case in chief.
I agree completely. The only reason they went through the motions was to try to get a more sympathetic jury. But my point is that EVEN IF Cheney had taken the stand, there really wasn’t anything he could have said that would have helped Libby.
If so, what would be interesting is how Team Fitz maintained it’s sangfroid and was able to sell Judge Reggie on how ‘shocked’ and how ‘taken advantage of’ they were by that long, disingenuous song-and-dance Team Libby was holding to during the pre-trial disclosure process about calling not just the best available but the best possible evidence in the defense case– which would entail calling both Libby & Cheney.
I actually think that, given the wide, & wildly inconsistent, signals being sent out by Team Libby and agents, not just in court but to friendlies in the press, it’s more likely Team Fitz really didn’t ‘know’ in any meaningful sense what Team Libby would do, but just prepared for the unexpected.
Heh, I am pretty sure they were not shocked in the least; offended maybe. It was total bullshit by the Libby team and Walton knew it too. As you know, in the battlefield of a substantial jury trial, the line is gray and tends to shift around; but there is conduct that, while not of the level of being unethical, still crosses the line. The bullshit they pulled with the court as to Libby and Cheney taking the stand, and again with the jury in opening statements, crossed it in my mind.
I’ll bet that pissed the jurors off. I knew Cheney wouldn’t testify because I was following along the live-blogathon, but if I were a juror, I’d have been mad.
They were mad; and not at all favorable to Cheney when interviewed after the trial.
seriously? If Cheney would have taken the stand and said “I ordered Libby to leak” Nothing would have changed?
Nothing about Libby’s case would have changed. Of course, a whole lot else would have changed, but not the outcome of Libby’s trial.
Bob in AZ
Hey, that is easy to say as we sit here two years on in the afterglow of the guilty verdict; but I am not at all sure that is a correct statement. You have no idea how freaking random juries are in their thinking or where this jury would have gone with that powerful variation in the evidence set. There were many people, including legal experts (Jeralyn Merrit working alongside FDL/Marcy for one) that were convinced during deliberations that the jury would acquit Libby as it was; so who knows what would have happened if the sitting VP came in and did his best to exculpate Libby’s actions and blathered about the nature of Libby’s job etc.
I would like to think that it would have made no difference, because legally it should not have, but I know better than that. Juries are weird, you just never know.
Sort of. Which makes her comment about the President waving his magic wand to declassify stuff all the more interesting, I think.
I thought the Plame Wilson’s were pretty well pissed off that Cheney was not required to testify
pdaly @ 8 wrote,
The thriving parasitic insects is usually a reference to Pine bark beetles. In dry weather (Arizona has been in drought for about 10-15 years), pine trees can’t draw much sap, and it is the sap that keeps the beetles under control. Without good sap flow, the beetles feast and the trees die.
Bob in AZ
In Ponderosa & Aspen country
Petrocelli–if you’re around, the first link bmaz posted @14 has an article about Ayn Rand and her “attractiveness” to that hapless Sanford fellow, if you’re still interested.
[Apologies for the personal communication.]
Ms e- I still keep thinking on the question Libby had for Addington the next day, all that time Libby spent deep into Leak Week huddling up with the closest person to an equal authority, Hadley, working on “Tenet’s” “I am responsible” statement, and all the effort and time Hadley spent after Leak Week in getting the NIE ‘formally’ declassified.
Doesn’t all that suggest — or at least allow for — Cheney starting to play Libby from much earlier on — by say that Tuesday morning of the St. Regis breakfast, and possibly even from the day before — such as once it occurred to Cheney from Libby’s report back to Cheney on the latter’s luncheon with Fleischer, that Ari could not be relied on to disseminate the pleak?
Interesting thought. Care to elaborate?
And while you’re elaborating, care to explain why you think Cheney refused to sign a waiver for the journalists?
To paraphrase from MASH, I’m not ignoring: I’m formulating my response — between threads [National Favre League living up to its name, through the first half, anyway].
“…care to explain why you think Cheney refused to sign a waiver for the journalists?”
Why do I have this image in my brainpan of a hungry crocodile seeking a dental hygiene assessment?
And another question, at least as relevant: Why would it necessarily have to be Libby that passed on to Novak the bonbon with the Plame filling? The previously Undead One sure seemed to want to make it clear that Fitz was able to produce a waiver from every administration person Novak eventually ‘squealed’ on.
Okay, National Favrlet replay over so:
For starters, I don’t see any credibility in Hadley’s claim that, whatever it was he worked oh so hard and for oh so long on, was the NIE. Hadley had unimpeded regular confidential access not just to his boss, Rice, and his bigger boss and her boss, Bush, but to everyone’s shadow boss Cheney, with whom he had a far longer deeper relationship than either of those two–plus incidentally therefore a pretty similarly long deep relationship with Cheney’s Cheney [Libby], not to omit Cheney’s [Thomas] Cromwell [Addington].
How is it remotely conceivable that Hadley would have labored so assiduously on an ill-conceived pointless task?
Unless that effort was not aimed at the NIE alone — or even perhaps not at all — but instead at some classified documents very very very loosely ‘connected’ to the wider IDEA of the NIE–being those which could be used to bolster the White House’s point of view on which parts of the NIE to have gone with, and at the same time, entirely as a matter of coincidence or misfortune, happened as well to reveal the fact that Joe Wilson was married to a high level CIA who, insofar as some high level career government types who should know were concerned, looked to have something close, peculiar and possibly untoward with that trip he took to Niger.
[And from all we know NOW about Addington, how likely is it– no: how is CREDIBLE — that when Libby inquired of him how one could tell if a CIA person happened to be undercover & what if any potential legal consequences there would be in revealing to …someone… that such person was indeed CIA– that Addington was not utterly aware of what — and ultimately who — was lurking behind the asking of those questions? But then Addington, in contrast with Hadley, stood to gain from Libby’s demise from exposure, and in any event would view Libby as being obliged to take the bullet he was always there to take.]
Now – surely that sort of in-house CIA bureaucratic and/or craft memos would never have been imagined to have been such as to reach anywhere near to the level of attention of any POTUS on July 7, 2003 [leave aside that of the particular decider-in-chief–the same man who accused a scared-spitless CIA of “covering his ass” in briefing him at the Crawdad woodpile weeks before 9/11]– but – along with a quietly-spoken, rational-sounding, reasonably-framed yet firm recommendation that “they” be de-classified to answer the president’s critics, at high boil over some rogue former Clinton imbed, with hard evidence – it could possibly be spun as necessarily including same — right? Suppose someone were predisposed to spin whatever imprecise, sloppily framed oral ‘authorization’ the nation’s historically detail-obvlious incurious most recent ex-president grunted out before a tiny group of witnesses, on a need-to-know basis, into something broader, and to a slightly wider need-to-believe group of secondary ‘witnesses’?
And suppose that someone were to be concerned that, years of loyal service notwithstanding, it might not be possible for one or more of the most important of those ‘secondardary witnesses’ to overcome a previously restrained yet ingrained lawyerly skeptical reluctance on the part of said secondary witness — or for whatever other reason those ‘secondary witnesses’ might possibly be psychologically contrained or undermotivated to follow the most effective shortcut to marketing the given product — particular whilst hobbled with firmly grounded suspicions as to [leave aside actual knowledge of] the full dimensions of the flimsy bogosity of, the core conspiracy theory paranoid b.s. content of, not just the product, but the means of production, and indeed the producer himself.
Look: the plan was to make it appear that Valerie Wilson’s CIA status was only a secret outside the Beltway, right? That’s why we got:
[a] the effort to get it into the WaPo, through Woodward–thus the hapless effort to engage Kessler, and the similar effort to bait Pincus [in the episode you described him finally realizing at the Trial of Libby, and chuckling, presumably ruefully, over] [BTW why didn’t they just buy Ignatieff a drink?];
[b] the effort to get it into the Times, directly via Judy maybe, but I’m thinking more likely by having her masters there pass it on to Gordon or more likely one of the major tools on the USIntellComm desk, like a Mark or a Shane];
[c] the effort to get it into TIME, usually and once again an historically reliable house for such activities, but apparently assumed by Cheney as maybe not being interested in that status being thrown into its face, thus the effort by Ari to make amends by trying to pass it on to a couple of suspected frathouse flick [and at least one actual] fluffers like Dickinson & Gregory — including the follow ups where both Rove and Libby went into risky business with Matt Cooper;
IOW for the story to appear to have just busted out of all the more respectable press organs, msm, moderate and liberal.
So — while having it come out as an exclusive from the then-Undead One could NOT have been anything close to the plan, or even a backup that anyone could be thrilled with [“anyone” in this context being meant to include the Undead One himself, who to my impression far preferred to pass on the real secret squirrel stuff to his BFF Karl, in return of cheaper cuts for meals like that crockpot stew he was peddling on FF Townsend], given all the incredible risks in those details of the plan that we already know of, giving it directly to Novak in addition actually doesn’t seem quite so crazy.
That’s the sense also that I made from Novak’s stressing his column going out so early on the press service wire: the idea that he was expected to see himself as part of a Student-Body Right formation play — not at all the Naked Reverse in which he found himself.
But despite the best desperate manipulations of that crazy paranoid old bastard in the OVP, it just didn’t work out according to the more complicated plan to use the putatively relatively unsullied tools at WaPo and The Times and TIME — so that everyone and anyone Cheney hung out to dry on that long thin exposed line was potentially at risk.
Libby had to know that he was among the most exposed [along with the slimiest snakes, Rove and Novak]. And, except for his wife, who would have the slightest empathy, understanding and sympathy for Libby, and therefore try to do for him something like what he’d like done for his own self in a similar position?
Hadley, that’s who. So, I suggest, Hadley was working to de-classify the NIE — but rather, if he was working on getting anything de-classified, it was the stuff that he — on behalf of Libby — hoped in the end would show up the Wilsons for precisely whatever in hell it was that Cheney thought they were and that Cheney ordered Libby to help him prove they were.
IMO you’re absolutely right that Cheney sold out Libby — but at that point, Cheney was not merely willing to sell out anyone and everyone, he was putting anyone and everyone at risk.
What’s most remarkable, though, is that none of his trustees ever seems to have turned tables on him.
I can think of a reason for Hadley to be laboring so assidiously on the declassification. They wanted to cherry pick the declassifications – but try to make it appear they had not cherrypicked them. That took more maneuvering – to work up what they could make public without opening the door for a Congressional/Dem pushback on the things that were not being made public. fwiw.
I do think you are right to look at the overall scope of the machinations to set up the talking point that her identity was only secret outside the beltway. The people who piped up that *everyone knew* were originally a crowd, but it’s one that dwindled when the Spec Pros started to get them to say the same in a perjury/false statements setting. But still, the people dangled and baited formed a considerable group – and with the hints and nudges from Rice et al it may be even bigger than we know. It’s no wonder Ari was so willing to make a deal.
I think Hadley may well be one of the keys. During the second Bush term, Hadley became the shadow president because Bush stopped giving Cheney free rein, but despite proclaiming “I’m the decider,” he had difficulty making decisions, and left the details to Hadley.
For Bush to entrust that much to Hadley, Hadley had to have earned his spurs previously. I wonder what did it?
Bob in AZ
So where does the release of this info leave Der Dick? A long time ago I opined here that to the extent it becomes known that Dick set up Scooter, his nearest and dearest, all Dick’s remaining power comes tumbling down. Because that power is totally based on Dick’s personal assurances to his co-conspirators, and now we see his assurances mean nothing when push comes to shove. Is this what Biden meant by saying Dick is now irrelevant?
I don’t think any of Dick Cheney’s power comes from other people’s good will, so I don’t think this really hurts him at all.
Not good will, but self-preservation. Any secret network — which is exactly what Cheney’s stay-behinds are — absolutely depends on the bond of the word of the co-conspirators. The honor among thieves thing is real. It’s exactly why squealers get killed.
Another fantastic post, Marcy. As you stated above, perhaps Cheney wanted “to give Libby the impression that his own testimony from an IIPA violation.” This exchange with Brit Hume on Feb. 15, 2006 certainly seems to be sending Libby that message. One thing that stood out for me and I am wondering whether you think there is anything regarding the question posed to Cheney as to whether he ever insta-declassified “unilaterally,” which Cheney did not answer (not surprisingly).
Also, do you know if Fitzgerald ever tried to re-interview Cheney? Or was the May 2004 a one shot deal? I was unable to track that down.
I did a terrible job of putting my question together above. Basically, I am wondering if you think that the use of the word “unilateral” was the message Cheney was trying to send to Libby?
Suppose Cheney gave Matalin information for Scooter– a conduit or back channel to stay in touch… Nothing like a surrogate mother to perfect your clone… It’s a recurring theme in history I see…
Dick is as Dick does. Even if is through a minion, it still Dick’s fault.
I’m willing to guess Mrs. Greenspan was disappointed she didn’t get a pass to explain her “everybody knew” Val was a James Blonde quip. Thus the lack of waiver from The Big One. Well there you go… Andrea was just an ape-woman and couldn’t speak.
Just what kind of history are you reading, anyway?
Well I’m just cherry-picking the cherry-pickings from those zany old Sumarians… Gotta start somewhere!
It seems oddly familiar…
The Sumerians I can see (I met Gilgamesh’s story years ago), but the rest of it is, um, considerably more recent in language.
I’m sure there’s a simple explanation…
I think it speaks to the universality of expedience and obfuscation.
Mm-hmm, right.
(They need a better website designer. Google may be your friend, but that designer is definitely not.)
Is that “made,” or “makes”? I.e., has the statute of limitations run out?
I think it is the five year general limitation statute that applies because none is specified in the IIPA, so yeah it would seem it has run.
“The Vice President advised that NO ONE EVER told him of a desire to share key judgments of the NIE with a news reporter prior to the NIEs declassification on 7/18/03.”
So why was it done? So they could have a portion of a declassified NIE just sit around the offices?
The ONLY plausible rationale for declassifying those sections of the NIE was to provide them to journalists. So there must have been discussion prior to the actual declassification.
And then they did not immediately release the declassified sections GENERALLY to the media…they held back. Why? So that select reporters could be bound to confidentiality status about when and who provided them with the information. No one could trace it to the OVP. Furthermore the Plame information could be innocuously packaged within that leak about the Niger yellowcake (sans footnotes that raised doubts about sourcing).
Marcy- Isn’t there a specific protocol involved in declassifying material in the Executive Order. I thought that the original classifying authorities had to be notified (unless they were doing the actual declassification themselves). They then had the chance to dispute the declassification. If a declassification remained unresolved the President could undertake the decision. There is no provision, IIRC, for authorizing someone else to do this. But in any case, neither Plame’s identity (if it happened) or the NIE declassification were brought to the attention of the CIA. It was “fast-tracked” outside of the specified procedure…sort of like saying “Bush is the judge and he’s going to declassify whatever the CIA says, so lets just do it”. Like the Red Queen “Sentence First, Trial Later”.
“it was “fast tracked” out side of the specified procedure”
I keep wondering what is the standard protocol for declassifying? Not that “protocol” mattered to the Bush thugs.
Has there ever been a Vice President in our history who was given the o.k. to declassify as Cheney claims he had been given.
It would seem logical that there would be records and documented dates when such critical decisions were being made.
No, not really.
In 2007, after it finally decided what authority Cheney had, the Administration maintained that Cheney was to be treated just like Bush.
There was the rule that you had to catalog all your classification and declassification activities over a year. But that’s the protocol that Cheney exempted himself from in–wait for it–2003.
I’m looking forward to what Bill Leonard has to say about Cheney’s 2-pages of garble about his declass authority, because he’s eitehr laughing or crying right now.
As your earlier post [Scott McClellan Dismantles Cheney’s Plame Firewall] makes clear, Libby ‘outed’ Valerie Plame to Judith Miller on July 8th. She had “Victoria Wilson” and “Valerie Flame” written in her notebook [babbling about not knowing how they got there]. Scooter insisted on reassurances from Addington about declassification. Addington claimed it was later, but that makes no sense. The only thing to declassify was Valerie’s covert status. Cheney’s participation/leadership in the whole affair is all over the notes, in his own handwriting. Yet he denies absolutely everything in this interview.
Patrick Fitzgerald knew all of this. Remind us why he didn’t indict Cheney for lying and/or with IIPA. If there’s a case today, there was a case then. What am I missing?…
There are foud questions:
Is there abundant evidence that Cheney lied? Yes.
Is there a way to try him for his lies? No. (For starters, on most of the lies you’d be pitting Cheney against Libby, one person’s word against another’s).
Could Fitz prove that Cheney’s lies were about something of sufficiently grave import to indict a sitting VP? No.
Can a sitting VP be indicted for things he had done in office? Unclear.
But look at it this way: Fitz gave Congress more than enough evidence to impeach Cheney with. Add in this interview–which they should have gone to the mat to get, and you’ve got a real impeachable offense. But Congress didn’t bother to read what Fitz gave them.
I don’t think it is all that unclear. There is nothing I have ever seen, and certainly nothing in the Constitution to preclude indictment of a sitting VP. There is also sitting in some dusty storeroom somewhere a SG opinion by none other than Bork saying that a VP can indeed be indicted.
And what I said above about the amenability of a sitting VP to indictment is still the official position of the DOJ/OLC today.
Okay, you win that point.
But that doesn’t make Judy Miller a viable witness on whose basis you want to indict a VP.
Hey, I never said that!
And now, given what more we now know, does it not look like Miller was intended to be a kind of honeypot? (Ugh, it pains me to use the word “honey” anywhere near Miller…)
She tainted everything while doing virtually nothing. She didn’t write about the leak, she tried to avoid questions about the leak, she sat in jail in her avoidance, and contributed virtually nothing to the prosecution’s effort. In some ways her entire career has been one of compromised positions; is she known to the intel community as a pro at this kind of role, one might wonder?
What would this situation have looked like if Miller had been excised from it, never been involved in it at all? Would have come down to a much more direct, mano a mano battled, Libby vs. Cheney? Would that have produced a much clearer opportunity to indict?
So what are the priorities here?
Guess Judy never got the memo…
Thanks for this summary.
If Congress can impeach a VP for lesser offenses, it must be legally possible to indict a sitting VP for things done in office. But would it ever happen politically? Probably not unless the Prez and the Veep had a serious falling out, and the Veep did something indictable. Of course in that situation, the Prez and Veep would have a little chat, and the Veep would resign.
But this all points to the incredible importance of the impeachment option. During the past 8 years, and especially for the last 4, Congress absolutely abdicated its Constitutional responsibilities in this regard. Our Constitution won’t work if one of the three branches of government chooses to emasculate itself as the Democrats did from 2004-2008, and especially in the last two years. Impeachment only becomes an obsolete and archaic clause if Congress chooses to regard it as such. And then we are doomed.
Bob in AZ
I’d like Nancy to give us an explanation. We deserve one.
The only satisfying explanation for me is that she guessed the outrage and furor of the electorate would be the most potent antidote to the gross malignancy in the White House at the time.
She didn’t realize that the economy would be crushed as well. Too bad. She could have saved us all a big headache. The recovery could have started in earnest five months earlier than March 2009.
Nobody knows how bad it will be because of her failure to intercede in a timely manner. After all, this is still a very messy problem with no cure in sight.
Newly released FBI data offer evidence of the broad scope and complexity of the nation’s terrorist watch list, documenting a daily flood of names nominated for inclusion to the controversial list.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/31/AR2009103102141.html?hpid%3Dmoreheadlines&sub=AR
During a 12-month period ended in March this year, for example, the USA intelligence community suggested on a daily basis that 1,600 people qualified for the list because they presented a “reasonable suspicion,” according to data provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee by the FBI in September and made public last week.
The ever-churning list is said to contain more than 400,000 unique names and over 1 million entries. The committee was told that over that same period, officials asked each day that 600 names be removed and 4,800 records be modified. Fewer than 5 percent of the people on the list are USA citizens or legal permanent residents. Nine percent of those on the terrorism list, the FBI said, are also on the government’s “no fly” list.
marcy, do you have any idea what eo cheney is talking about and where it might say any such thing?
mind you, even if such an executive order exists I personally believe it cannot be valid (ianal) but still I would like to see the specific passage he is making this claim
E.O. 13292
http://www.fas.org/sgp/bush/eoamend.html
(l) “Declassification authority” means:
(1) the official who authorized the original classification, if that official is still serving in the same position;
(2) the originators current successor in function;
(3) a supervisory official of either; or
(4) officials delegated declassification authority in writing by the agency head or the senior agency official.
Did Bush delegate “declassification authority” to Cheney in writing? If not, why not? (He was told he could only use A #2 PENCIL.)(…and all he had were crayons…)
that’s not an eo it’s an sop, cheney claims he has an eo, I have yet to see any such thing…if it exists
Here’s all the background on that EO.
The short version is that it doesn’t say that. But since Bush had an OLC opinion saying all EOs can be pixie dusted, they were able to invent what Bush meant retroactively 4 years after the fact.
that’s what I thought, nothing but pixie dust
on the other hand, person demonstrated an authority must be given in writing so even pixie dust does not cover cheney’s claim
Well, short of impeachment, that’s not how our country works.
The default is president gets to decide classification and declassification. He would do that through EOs. No court has told OLC it’s full of shit for saying EOs can be pixie dusted (it was done before, during Iran-Contra).
So until you have a court objecting or a Congress legislating (or impeaching), it’s legal. Of course, Harriet Miers didn’t buy that, but what’s a WH Counsel matter in the grand scheme of things?
Can you imagine Bush ordering Tenet to sign off on the disclosure?
Me neither but I’ll give it a try…
— George, this is George. Gotta minute? Say, can I get you to take responsibility for the 16 words commin outa my mouth? While yer at it, Dick wants to spill the beans on yer gal pal Val. Be cool ‘mkay? Gotta little medal here if ya do! —
That’s a new wrinkle on the Epic of Gilgamesh for me that floating through this thread. When I read it, I was struck by the fact that what Gilgamesh and his crew really wanted to do was to cut down the biggest and best forests of cedars so they could make the snazziest temples and impress the socks off their neighbors. Environmental mayhem from the get-go.
Ancient Lebanon cut its cedars for Solomon’s temple.
Cyprus used to have forests; they were cut to fuel copper smelters.
Nothing new under the sun.
Why is history so full of shameless, self-serving narcissists? (So far as I can tell…) Are our predilections endemic?
So if making things better was goal, how has that worked out?
‘Torture flight’ plane spotted in Birmingham
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/01/rendition-flight-birmingham-airport-cia
That’s the bird.
EW well done i’mgone real
Powerful men have a history of enticing comely women to their ends…
Not that Pelosi was seduced by a powerful man… she may not have been confident enough to use her newly bestowed privledge aggressively. After all, her goal was to nurture the Democratic congressional majority rather than shuck the yoke of bondage…
It was enough for her to have the power as speaker. She elected not to risk it in combat with her “elders”. She likely felt more enraptured than enraged. Optimism has a cost. It creates nearsightedness and dulls foresight.
Just can’t imagine that the CIA (Tenet) is feeling so happy with Cheney
“In his FBI interview, Cheney said his initial reaction to the Wilson article was his sense that it was “amateur hour” out at the CIA.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091031/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_cheney_cia_leak
————————————————————–
Isikoff’s latest (imagine Marcy might have a few things to say about Isikoff’s efforts to downplay the importance of the interview being released) Nothing new here just move along now
Too bad it’s not a Presidents blowjob then Isikoff would be going deep and wide.
Dick Cheney: An Irascible Witness “Irascible”?
“They contain no bombshells that will change the public’s basic understanding of the leak investigation, which led to the indictment and conviction of Cheney’s top aide, Scooter Libby, on perjury charges. But they do flesh out a portrait of a vice president who made little secret of his disdain for key players in the saga: the CIA, the news media (including NEWSWEEK), and apparently the FBI agents who had been authorized to investigate the matter.
“It was amateur hour at the CIA,” Cheney told the FBI when he was questioned about the agency’s decision to dispatch former ambassador Joe Wilson to Niger to look into claims that Saddam Hussein was buying yellowcake uranium (after Cheney had expressed an interest in the subject).”
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/declassified/archive/2009/10/30/dick-cheney-an-irascible-witness.aspx
Could never forget this line in “The Hunting of the President” by Joe Conason
Page 295
” A friend of Lewinsky’s at the Pentagon was being hounded by Isikoff the Newsweek reporter”
Guess we should not hold our breaths to see if Isikoff writes a book about “Uncovering Cheney” You know like his book “Uncovering Clinton”
Do you think Isikoff has ever “HOUNDED” Cheney or “hounded” the declassification issue?
Much more interesting for him to look into blowjobs than outing a CIA undercover agent, or intelligence snowjobs. Isikoff has his priorities
But wait… There’s more!
Here come the “plug in” hybrids…
Here’s the archetypal scholar, enriched with knowledge and wisdom and what happens? They have kids. Ever heard the expression “kids change everything”?
I guess the congressional evolution from Republican to Democrat is a similar tale. You want things to get better but someone is bound to feel left out.
There’s bound to be a conflict of interest between the vanguards of imperial authority and a pragmatically developed technological culture. Ironic that it should manifest through jealousy and envy. What a catfight — Teabaggers vs TBoggers, conservatives vs moderates, country vs western…
Candy mint vs. breath mint…
Soft rock vs metalcore…
No wonder twins are considered “trouble”. Smoke ’em if ya got ’em…
Are we not men? WE ARE DEVO!
Oh, the wages of sin! But still, no Cheneyesque villains. Just your garden variety sibling rivalry. Well there’s alot more history to cover I guess. Eh?!
Ever wonder why on earth the Fox News males are so much less telegenic than the females? For such a patriarchal idealogue you’d think there would be some standards for the guys — both guests and pundits. It’s like there’s a harem of desirable women for the male audience but no studly guys for the gals to admire. Frankly, the dudes are Bozo’s. It escapes me why there’s no eye candy for the women viewers. Doesn’t seem fair… or balanced.
Then I read about that wiley Niberian Marduk. He was into Earth chicks…
Hint… They’re easy…
That’s Murdoch’s gambit — screw the “royals” and pander to the shills. For example…
Murdoch Papers Said to Pay to Settle Hacking Cases
Acquiring the WSJ must have given him a dose of V-gra too…
A Domain of Personal Tyranny
Earth men were easily usurped and Marduk used them to further his own lineage against the competition…
Murdoch’s lineage is steeped in political intrigue as well…
But here’s the rub. As in Marduk’s day, climate change was an issue…
Yahweh is not the guy to mess with, but mess with they did…
Now you’d think that the adults would act like adults in the face of catastrophe but is that what happened?
Temper temper!
Yahweh was pissed at everybody now!
Holy Hollywood disaster movie, Batman!
Will the real “Creator of All” please stand up??!!
Well, it’s getting late but guess what happens next…
That’s not the same as telling Judy Miller to Flame Valerie. But that’s how history goes I guess…
Well maybe I’ll just wait for the DVD to find out what happened next.
I doubt Fox News will give us much warning about the next climate disaster either. Although I kind of like the idea of sending Murdoch to Mars.
I am in no position whatsoever to pass judgment on this, but it is right up your alley. Hope you see it.
Cool link, thanks!
I can’t wait to see the movie!
1. Libby is a felon and so he is disbarred as a lawyer. ‘Service Before Self’ Award or not, I doubt Cheney’s conservative bretheren is as reliable a source of income as being a top DC lawyer.
If Obama cared about the truth and/or partisanship, his admin could dangle a pardon for Libby, which would restore his career, if he cooperates.
2. I am struck by recurrent patterns in these scandals:
a. the Iran-Contra “I can’t recall” defense. Cheney was a major enabler of this scandal’s cover-up in Congress. (If I used “I can’t recall,” I doubt I’d get away with such lies or the crime.)
b. Nixon’s ‘If the President does it, then it must be legal’ is a big part of the Cheney modus operandi. Cheney even was part of a conference about how to avoid Watergate’s mistakes — mistakes that led to the scandal being discovered and somewhat prosecuted. The cover-up was prosecuted. We still have little or no idea what was so imporant in that DNC office for the ‘burglars’ to break in twice to bug the phones. I’m too young to know, but Nixon was probably leading in the polls at that point, and he won by a landslide.
i. The Executive Order excuse is part and parcel of this. Cheney’s just emiting stuff to confuse us. It is a lie. In covert ops you deny and then throw counter-accusations. This is similar. I can’t think of a single time Bush or Cheney told the truth.
3. I have long believed that the outing of Valerie Plame was only partially retribution for Joe Wilson deflating the Nuke/Bio WMD claim, specifically the Nuke part. With Wilson’s revelation Cheney only had the Bio WMD part left to use for lies. Remember the search for the mobile weapons labs that were hidden anywhere in Iraq?
Wilson was an American Hero. In the early 1990s Gulf War, he negotiated face to face with Saddam Hussein and freed some Americans. He and his wife represented knowledge and power, a unique threat to Cheney’s lies and power. Plame had an entire Cover and network in the Middle East, Africa, and Iran. If Cheney were to lie about Bio WMD, she could be in a position to debunk that as well. Outing Plame ruined not just Plame, but the entire network and cover. People who worked with the CIA might have been killed over this.
4. Interestingly, in early July 2003, around when this Niger Yellowcake fraud was being revealed, Judith Miller co-wrote a NYTimes piece that Steven Hatfill was creating a mobile bio-weapons lab that was about to be sent to Iraq for the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Delta Force. “We are not growing anthrax or botulinum toxin,” Colonel Darley said [of the mobile bio-wmd training lab]. “None of this equipment is functional. It looks like — it is — the real stuff, but it’s nonfunctional.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/02/us/after-war-biological-warfare-subject-anthrax-inquiry-tied-anti-germ-training.html?scp=1&sq=Subject of Anthrax Inquiry Tied to Anti-Germ Training&st=cse&pagewanted=all
There is a fine line between defense/training and offense/false-flag operations.
I have long wondered why false-flag Bio WMD weren’t planted in Iraq, justifying the invasion. Valerie Plame was in a unique position to debunk this, and Hatfill was a hot topic back then as a person of interest in the Anthrax investigation. He’s since been cleared, but he was still consulting/volunteering for the DIA & Delta Force on this very realistic mobile bio-weapons lab. This could be the scandal behind the scandal. What we are discussing here with Cheney and Libby is a cover-up of a cover-up, and it might be a cover-up of a cover-up of a cover-up.
Joe Wilson blew the whistle on the nuke sham, and his wife was working in the area justifying the War on Terror’s false-association with Iraq and maybe Iran down the road.
Oops. I meant to say in the last sentence:
Joe Wilson blew the whistle on the nuke sham, and his wife was working in the area threatening the justification of Bush-Cheney’s War on Terror’s false-association with Iraq and maybe Iran down the road
Wretched Coot Cheney defies categorization. But here’s an interesting approach.
The Villain Chart.
Here’s another take…
Superbad
Still working on my history lessons just in case there is a dead ringer out there…